


Tea Leaves

by dagonst



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 19:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2240673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dagonst/pseuds/dagonst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her work had not suffered, she wasn't crying into her pillow at night.  She had not formed an inappropriate attachment, except perhaps to her mobile phone.  She only started changing his tea blend with the cold-blooded deliberation of a poisoner.  Mycroft, Anthea: friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea Leaves

She lasted longer than most of Mycroft’s immediate assistants, and her departure annoyed him more. 

He'd learned to think of his staff’s low-level wars over what they would call 'petty details' as unconscious requests for transfer. But this one had shown no other signs of dissatisfaction. Her work had not suffered, she wasn't crying into her pillow at night. She kept her home life where it belonged. She had not formed an inappropriate attachment, except perhaps to her mobile phone. She only started changing his tea blend with the cold-blooded deliberation of a poisoner. 

Mycroft shipped her off to fieldwork like all the others. When she did not, like the others, request permanent reassignment, he allowed her back for further observation. 

* * *

The second time Mycroft banished her, she left her box of personal effects in a corner. Labeled ‘Anthea’, which at the time was an operation, not an operative. She must have known he’d notice. And she’d packed before interfering with his tea. Insufferable presumption, or it would have been if not for the efficiency of it.

* * *

Preoccupied with setting up the Moriarty trap, he let the tea situation go on days too long before sending Anthea away again. She returned a week early, with only the beginnings of a tan, and kept the condolence messages from reaching his desk. He hopes that letting her have the work of analysing for threats will be interpreted as the gratitude it is.

* * *

 _Other people have brothers too,_ Anthea texts from just outside his office. 

Mycroft shoots a quelling look through the doorway. If he has been out of sorts - and he has - she should have the sense to ignore it. Unless overly personal texts are Anthea’s variation on the transfer request, a thought that does not improve his mood. "You don't. You had tea with your sister Wednesday. Has she gotten herself burnt at the stake since then?" 

She gives him an unimpressed look and walks out with a stack of files.

As a rule, Mycroft does not pry into his employees’ lives more than he can avoid. But he could use a brief distraction from the nagging problem of who tried to roast John Watson, and he has an invitation. Two minutes tells him that Phoebe - younger half-sister, not the one who works in the City - left five weeks ago for a remote climbing tour with a man she'd just met. Anthea would already know that he owns an impractically small car and bad debts and petty crime stretching back years. 

He messages back: _The will shouldn’t affect his climbing skills, he isn’t traveling with his cousin._

 _He is traveling with my sister._ Texts don’t carry inflection that would tell him what she means by telling him what he already knows. Unless all she means is the fact itself, which worries her enough to have, now, affected her work. At least it’s the kind of problem he can _do_ something about.. 

"We do have have rather good resources in Nepal,” he reminds Anthea when she drops off the next batch of files. “I’ve spoken to the South China desk. Do you want them separated?”

"Observed. We’re tracing the bonfire wood, unless you’d rather leave that for your brother."

Mycroft considers. “No, carry on.”


End file.
